Dear Diary Moments:

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d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 7/2/2021:

In my latest immersion (a collection of essays on Phenomenology and Marxism), I find myself confronted a lot with the term “hermeneutics”, a term I was acquainted with through Rorty’s Pragmatism: a term or approach he seemed to advocate. The definition my present immersion offers is that which involves both critique and interpretation. And here we can see the connection with postmodernism which tends to see text as anything available to be interpreted without necessarily having to involve language and involves the explorations of semiology. As long as it involves signs and symbols (signifiers and signifieds), it can be interpreted and critiqued.

My initial understanding of hermeneutics was a process by which we come to know a thing by a kind of unfolding of the various layers (like an onion (until we get to the core (or even the underlying nothingness (of things. And this seemed to be the kind of hermeneutic at work in Foucault’s Archeology or even Derrida’s de (or I’m sorry: d. (construction. And make no mistake about the extent that Hermeneutics played in more contemporary continental culture as well as Marx.

At the same time, I can’t help but think that the book’s description is better or more appropriate. My understanding of an unfolding certainly seems to describe the process described in the book. But my standard seems to apply to any process by which we come to obtain knowledge, including mathematics which is a body of accumulated rules when you first approach it, but becomes more accessible to you as you unfold the various layers. And by proxy, we can say the same thing about science or even applied tech such as being a mechanic. And critique (and interpretation in a limited sense (is hardly applicable to these activities.

It just seems to me that the book’s definition of interpretation and critique might be more precise. Still, you have to admit that there is always an unfolding involved in those processes.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 7/16/2021:

Reference: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6757450 ... 0150816089

“This ability seems to be pretty unique to humans (the mirror test) and occurs at the age of about 18months. It is a tearing apart of body from mind, the start of self-consciousness, but with it comes symbolic thought and knowledge of death. Existential angst but it also releases enormous power and responsibility!” –Steve Brewer

The above quote refers to Dr. Brewer’s book Origins of the Self, a book I highly recommend. Not only is it cheap on Kindle, it gave me a lot I can use (my primary criterion (and it can be a useful steppingstone and guide to aspiring philosophers who must, above all, recognize how important (essential even (evolution is to any conceptual model they might develop. I mean evolution is all over contemporary theory.

What Brewer is referring to is an experiment that establishes a sense of self by putting rouge on the face of a subject (both human and animal (and putting them in front of a mirror. If the subject acts to brush the rouge off their face, it establishes that the subject sees something that is not of their self. And as Brewer points out above: children tend to reach this sense of self at about 18 months. And also interesting to note is that some species of monkeys or apes (what’s the categorization, Dr.? (have shown a similar tendency. This just goes to demonstrate the proximity we have to them on the evolutionary tree.

However: this creates a conflict for me. And hopefully the good doctor can help me with this, given his appreciation of more continental thought; or even my respected peers. The identity experiment conflicts with Lacan’s model of the “mirror phase” –which works equally well for me. In it, the child starts off as a chaos of impulses and needs. But when it first sees its self in a mirror, it finds itself as a coherent whole….

It seems I have answered my own question. Brewer’s point only conditions Lacan’s to the extent that the mirror phase only works at a certain point in development. As Rosannadanna on SNL use to say: Never mind………..
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 7/25/2021:

Started today on the book I got from Philosophy Now for getting my answer to the question of the month accepted (

Bragging rights!!! This brain is international, Baby!!!!!!

: The Philosopher Queens, edited by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting. And it’s about time. I always know that I have to open myself up to multicultural studies. And when I do, I’m always glad I did. But as a white, heterosexual male, I tend to attract to “dead white males”. I just relate to them more easily. And as wrong as it may have been, we have to admit that they have dominated the general discourse as concerns our cultural history. But that is mainly because they have had the luxury of exploring deeper issues such as the nature of mind or whether the universe is determined or random or matters of free will. Women (as well as minorities (have always had to contend with the more superficial issues of social and political justice. They end up having to play off of and utilize the more metaphysical musings of those dead white males. And all we can do now is not try to reinterpret or change the past, but try to change how we go forward.

That said, every book is an adventure. You follow the author (or authors (through another world in which you are allowed to mill about and explore and see what happens based on the information you get from it. I look forward to seeing what happens with this particular book.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 8/14/2021:

One of the things that came up for me in James William’s guide to Difference and Repetition is Deleuze’s distinction between “repetition for itself” and “difference in itself”. And phrasing is really important here. The thing is I can’t help but see a correlation between Deleuze’s dyad and Sartre’s (respectively: “being for itself” and “being in itself”. So the question is:

Coincidence?

:I personally think not. Sartre may have been more of an influence on Deleuze than I previously realized. Still I have to ask if my instincts on this are wrong. And if I am right, how do they correlate? It seems to me (according to what I THINK I understand (that repetition should be in itself (that which is associated with common objects (while difference should be for itself: that which is associated w/ consciousness. But then Deleuze had and has a reputation for twisting these things around.

Anyway: anyone?
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 8/16/2021:



Reading Joe Hughes' Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, I'm starting to better understand Repetition in the latent sense that Deleuze describes it as compared to the manifest sense of it that we see in the everyday. As I read it, it's like an abstract bricolage that is in a constant state of revision (Difference (while maintaining a limited stasis to the extent that a pure repetition would consist of a pure nothing: death. It's a repetition that requires difference in order to keep repeating itself. In a sense, I was getting at it when I attributed it to a kind of metaphysical/analytic statement:



At best, a pure repetition can consist of the same thing at different moments in time. Therefore, the only thing that can truly be repeated is difference.



: however, I now realize that the description I offered was an expression of manifest repetition. But it was still a useful stepping stone.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 8/19/2021:

Thinking about it now, Deleuze’s ‘connect and forget’ makes perfect sense. In order to connect w/ the infinite in our finite capacity, we would have to let go of the possibility of retaining everything. To do otherwise would be the pride (the arrogance even (that goes before the fall.
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Joe Hughes in his reader’s guide to Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition points out that Difference in Itself (what James Williams refers to as ‘pure Difference’ (is not just a movement of Being but, rather, integral to Being itself. And if one thinks about it: Difference is what allows Being to continue being. Without Difference, Being would succumb to something like Deleuze’s ‘Actual Death’ (as compared to the virtual deaths we experience throughout life (which is a perfect repetition that can no longer even be a repetition without Difference: a perfect Nothingness.
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What we can see in Deleuze’s agenda (his manifesto (is a forward flight similar to Sartre’s –as pointed out by one of Sartre’s critics. However, it is reversed in Deleuze’s case. In Sartre’s case, it was about being-for-itself projecting out of being-in-itself towards being-in-itself. But put in mind here that Sartre saw Nothingness as coiled into the heart of Being like a worm. Think: Fulcrum. Therefore, we could argue that Sartre (very much like Deleuze (was arguing for a dynamic of something projecting out of nothing into nothing. What I would refer to as the nihilistic perspective.

I would argue that it was this sensibility (this forward flight in Deleuze (that led to D & G having to tone it down for a Thousand Plateaus after seeing the effects on people of the Anti-Oedipus.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/5/2021:

Reading Joe Hughes’ reader guide to Difference and Repetition, I’m starting to get clearer sense of a line of development that started in D & R and reached a deeper and more evolved expression in Anti-Oedipus. But first we have to backtrack through Husserl’s understanding of Kant’s Doctrine of the Faculties: that which describes the synthetic process by which we move from immediate experience to understanding. Using the terminology I lifted from it all:

It starts with the sensible which is the data input that comes through the senses.

We then move on to what Kant called Reproduction through which imagination and memory process the incoming data in order that the mind might achieve:

Understanding which is the active domain of thought as compared to the passive nature of the previous two.

And this is a two way street. While there is a synthetic process that works from the sensible to understanding and the conceptual, there is a “double adventure” in which the conceptual is imposed back on the sensible: the schematism. In Kant this was the modes that allowed the mind to organize the chaotic input of reality. And much of Deleuze’s D & R is about his attempt to revamp the model in the context of Kant’s later book: Critique of Judgement. Furthermore, it helps to recognize that Deleuze, unlike Kant, saw this process as failed and therefore aleatory in nature: a roll of the dice.

And jumping to Anti-Oedipus, we start to see a lot of overlaps w/ the D & R model and D & G’s 3 syntheses of the unconscious (a clear result of Guatarri’s psychiatric background and influence:

The connective in which the mind takes in data and forms connections.

The disjunctive in which conflicts and dichotomies emerge.

And the conjunctive in which an uneasy and volatile (therefore tentative (understanding is reached that is destined for collapse.

And I use the term “understanding” as a purposeful reference to the previous synthetic process. This is because this, as D & G describe it, is the point at which an active self emerges (an I (then collapses back into the passive process: the barbarian hordes of the unconscious. And in this process, we see how the concept of schematism emerges in new form in the overcoding D & G attribute to Freud’s Oedipus complex.

PS: could go on; but this shit is straining my brain.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/6/21:

Reading Joe Hughes' reader guide to Difference and Repetition, in my study point at the "library", I came across a point on which I may have to depart from Deleuze. It describes the idea of univocal being (all things that are are in the same way (as ending in a Metaphysics of Power: the notion that if all things are in the same way, the only way to distinguish them is in terms of the power they have to affect other things. For myself, I tend to think of univocal being as a democritizing force as described by Rorty who talked about the pointlessness of talking about ontological status.

Of course, the main reason this is problematic for me is that I stand by what I call a Metaphysic of Efficiency: that focused on the distribution of resources in relationship to the expectations involved. And it seems to me that Deleuze's ubiquitous difference serves that metaphysic in ways that I have yet to define.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just misunderstanding Deleuze's point. Still, it feels like he is stuck in the Metaphysics of Power that we have to get beyond if we are to survive as a species, that is by moving on to a Metaphysics of Efficiency.

But then maybe I'm reading him wrong.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/12/2021:

As I start on this immersion in Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition starting w/ Joe Hughes’ reader’s guide then on to James Williams’ and on to the original text (I’m thinking about adding Levi R. Bryant’s Difference and Givenness due to a comment by Hughes), after all this scratching at the surface of it, I’m starting to worry that I may be reaching that ineffable (asphasic even: new word I learned today (depth at which I can no longer actually comment, in which all I can do is name-drop as I have shamelessly done here.

PS: has anyone noticed how the how most commentators on Deleuze’s books (w/ and w/out Guatarri (are always conditioned by the network of other books they have read by, about, and influential to him? Doesn’t it seem like the rhizomatic network of other books, other texts (the Derridaian diffe̕rrance ( is what purposely determines the interpretation? It’s as if the text itself doesn’t matter as much as the path by which you arrive at it.

As Deleuze suggested: multiply differences.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/13/2021:

Today I want to break down and elaborate on a passage in Joe Hughes' reader guide to Difference and Repetition and hopefully get at the profound experience it was. But as I have said before: philosophy (especially of the continental kind (is a little like someone on LSD trying to explain their high. There is every reason to expect that my points will fall short of their intended goal. Okay:

“Deleuze directly adopts this notion from Husserl in his terse definition of passive synthesis as one which 'is not carried out by the mind, but occurs in the mind'.”

In this, we get a deeper and more subtle understanding of how it is the unconscious works. And we get at it by understanding the distinction between something that the mind carries out (as if the mind is an independent agent manipulating the content of the unconscious (and note how this must of contributed to Freud’s literary description of dreams that made it seem as if the unconscious was consciously creating these symbolic narratives: that which resulted in the silliness of dream dictionaries (as compared to the unconscious working in the same way mechanical rooms do in a building. This, of course, is influenced by my own experience as a maintenance tech. But the description of ‘occurring in the mind’ does delegate the unconscious to the role of supporting the activities of the mind without actually fixing them in any way. This is because as Hughes further points out:

“The fact that these syntheses is not at all what is most interesting about them for either Deleuze or Husserl. What is far more interesting is that they are not rule -governed syntheses. They are essentially transgressive.”

This is the dice roll and aleatory point that Deleuze refers to throughout his process. The unconscious (the passive syntheses), not having the kind of controlling mechanisms that the mind has (the active synthesis), tend to be chance in nature. And here we can see the roots of desiring production that Deleuze (in collusion with Guatarri (would evolve to. In the Anti-Oedipus, these barbarian hordes are shaped into acceptable thoughts through social production.

Or did I fuck this up?
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/18/2021:

Today, at the “library”, I had the pleasure of watching the Nebraska/Oklahoma game to the end. Granted, it was a shame that the Huskers lost. But they still gave the Sooners a game to the very end. And it made me realize:

I like watching football. I just wish I had more time for it. But it’s cool to watch some of our brightest and physically fit youth pursue excellence (these college teams are full of intelligent young bulls), much as they do with fine arts and philosophy (I see the same thing at work with young actors who appear in movies). And no doubt competitiveness has a lot to do with it.

But let’s be very clear on this: by no means is this a model (as an Ayn Rand would argue (for political policy –whether social or economic. They may be impressive. They may even become myths. But we cannot allow ourselves to succumb to defining ourselves and our value by them.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/19/2021:

Watching Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ the other night, I saw, yet again, how a lot of our more secular heroes (or how we see them (can be rooted in Christian mythology: the very archetype (Lewis? (of the Christ-like figure. This can be really seen with Deleuze (w/ and w/out Guatarri (and his insistence on personal revolution as compared to the revolutionary action of groups. This, of course, can also be seen pervasively throughout philosophical history which may well be why Spinoza is considered “the Christ of philosophers”.

In fact, if we think about it, philosophy is primarily about a personal revolution.
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“Revolution moves beyond the dichotomies of historical determination or human freedom, and physical determination or dumb systemic luck. The catalyst is neither individual or group freedom, nor blind chance. Instead, every event is revolutionary due to an interaction of signs, acts and structures through the whole event. Events are distinguished in terms of the intensity of this revolution, rather than types of freedom or chance. Intensity is itself only decided, and then only temporarily, by a further counter-actualisation.” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide . Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

Nowhere was this more relevant than in the two US festivals put on by Steve Wozniak of Apple fame. The idea, of course, was to recreate the glory of Woodstock. And in the second, this criterion was approached on heavy metal day when the audience was numbered at the crucial goal of around 500,000 people.

Still, it was no Woodstock. What Woz (for all his investment (and we failed to recognize was that Woodstock was the result of a lot of chance elements that made it as important as it was, most notably that rock and roll as manifest in the 60’s was still seeking legitimate status as an art form as well as the whole hippy/counter culture. That wasn’t the case in the early 80’s primarily (and ironically (because of Woodstock.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 9/20/2021:

I've come to realize, in my immersion in Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, a couple of things about his concept of the actual and the virtual. I've come to make a couple of connections:

To begin, his inclusion of the virtual may well be why he insists on univocal Being: that which accepts that all things which exist must be said to exist in the same way. And this can be said of our reactions to actual things: the becomings as Deleuze would describe it. And note the pragmatic overlap with Rorty who often showed his disdain for any attempts at establishing "ontological status". And we have to lend some credibility to this sensibility, and the existence of the virtual, given how important a role that ineffable (non-actual (factors play in the various events we find ourselves negotiating. We begin to see (from an evolutionary perspective (that our capacity to adapt to a given but changing environment may well depend on our capacity to employ the virtual.

This, of course, can easily be interpreted as a dismissal of science from a continental perspective -that is since the actual is what science primarily focuses on. This hostility can be seen in the Sokal hoax which many took as a condemnation of post-structuralism and Postmodernism. But all it really exposed is what we already knew: that philosophers are not scientists and, therefore, have to depend on the authority of scientists when it comes to scientific matters.

All Deleuze was trying to establish (as many of his continental peers were (was that we have to keep the authority of science in perspective. That we have to recognize that science is limited by its focus on the actual (and indifference to the virtual (while being perfectly useful in that capacity. All the continentals were trying to do is assert the role of the virtual in our evolutionary adaption.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

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Dear Diary Moment 9/26/2021:

This week on Real Time, Bill Maher talked to Tristan Harris who is apparently part of some kind of watchdog group as concerns social media. Harris revealed that Facebook had flagrantly utilized an algorithm that pushed posts that managed to generate more conflict because they happened to generate more revenue. And no doubt, this is a questionable thing to do on Zuckenberg’s part (once again: his techno-libertarianism), and this is why we need watchdog groups like that of Harris’. It was also brought up how Facebook users are more statistically likely to experience depression and body image issues.

Maher, of course, was all over this and railing against the evils of social media. He does as much with non-vegetarian diets and religion. It’s as if he doesn’t do it, no one else should either. And as much as I love Maher and religiously follow everything he does, it can come off as a little sanctimonious at times.

The problem with the argument is that while it does establish a correlation between social media and mental health issues (including hostility), it might actually be reversing the A & B of causality. Tristan and Maher’s argument makes it seem as if Facebook is creating hostile and depressed people when, in fact, in it may actually be attracting them due to their lack of social skills, that is when mentally healthy people can simply use it as one tool among others –including going in to real world social situations- and come out of it still mentally healthy.

And, once again: the thing everyone neglects to mention is the Facebook block which is complete (you don’t see them and they don’t see you (as compared to the block you got on old social media such as MySpace.

And let me be very clear on this: I do not give a flying fuck about Zuckerberg (he’s just a rich guy to me (or Facebook. I am not out to defend their honor. I am simply making the argument that, like a lot of other things in life, they are mixed packages that require something more subtle than outright negativity.
d63
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Re: Dear Diary Moments:

Post by d63 »

Dear Diary Moment 10/1/2021:

I’ve been dealing with, for some time now, Deleuze's conceptual dyad of common and good sense -both of which he is clearly critical of. Now common sense seemed pretty easy to get a grip on in that the word "common" suggests that it is about a way of thinking (that which comes with common assumptions (that is common among most people. And we can see why Deleuze might be critical of it to the extent that it can lead to doxa: generally accepted responses to generally accepted cues.

Good sense was a little more elusive to me. But now I'm starting to see that it may have to do with what it is practical to accept as true. And I can see where this might be problematic for Deleuze to the extent that it can succumb to what I refer to as "the tyranny of the functional".

At the same time, this could also prove problematic for the pragmatic overlap I see between Deleuze and Rorty. But it’s not surprising given Deleuze’s French propensity for radical critique. And in my defense, where I see the overlap is in their method: that of democratically letting people think what they think free of dogmatic criteria and just letting everything come out in the wash.
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